It's Saraday, so Emily has work at the bar again. She leaves early just like on Arcaday, as soon as she finishes putting my hair up. I make sure to give her a little more lightning mana before she goes, but she just giggles at me a little, says thanks, then heads out.
Once more, I start to lie in bed drowsily while vaguely counting. I feel like I have a little more energy than yesterday, a good sign that I'm recovering. However, things start off early today. I'm only up to ninety, so the second bell is still a long, long way off, when there's a knock on our door. Mary is the first one up, opening it. I look over... John? He's really early today!
"Excuse me, I'm here to pick up Aria for work," he says.
"A-Aria," she turns and calls me. But she looks so pale that before I can even respond, Eve leaps out of bed.
"Come on Mary. You should be getting extra rest if you feel that bad!"
"No, I'm fine, really!" she tries arguing, even as Eve starts to push her back toward her bed. I hope she's alright...
"Go on Aria," Eve says when she sees me staring worriedly. "I'll take care of Mary."
"Thanks a lot, Eve." I bow gratefully before grabbing the bag Emily packed for me and heading for the door. John picks me up immediately, and we stop briefly to tell Mister Fredricson I'm leaving before going out.
John moves down North Main Street even faster than usual today. Between his early arrival and obvious haste, I have to ask, "Hey, are we in a rush today?"
"Kind of, yeah. There's a lot to do today. Eryk will tell you once we get there." I nod. Even though he uses the main streets, John is going at such a fast pace, he actually gets us all the way across town by the second bell. Though I can see him panting and feel the sweat beading on his arms as we approach the refinery. He isn't pushing himself too hard for me, is he...?
We go right into Eryk's office, where I take off my dirty shoes again before sitting down at the table.
Eryk sits across the table and it's immediately obvious that he is dead tired. "Are... you alright?" I ask worriedly.
"Fine, just way too busy. But you don't need to worry about that. A messenger will be here with food soon. We'll get started once you're finished." I nod obediently. It seems like he's so tired, he's not even giving off his usual confident feel. "Now for our agenda today. First, we go into the workshop and continue our work. Then we'll go get you cleaned up and presentable. Then you'll have your interview with your prospective instructor."
"Already?" I ask, blinking rapidly. It's only been one day!
"I promised you an education, so I'm going to get you a damn education," he says for some reason. But he just looks even more tired as he says it. Before I can really ask any more about that, there's a knock on the far door leading into the hall, followed by the door opening and a man coming inside.
"Sir, your delivery," he says. I see the man's eyes flick from Eryk to me, and then back, but his expression remains composed. It was so fast I'd miss it if I blinked. Eryk takes the bowl and hands him a coin with a word of thanks. Then the man leaves and he slides the bowl across the table to me.
"Eat up," he says, and I nod. Despite eating so much food last night, I have no trouble going right through this entire bowl too. I don't have time to dwell on it though. When I finish, Eryk says, "Alright, let's get to work."
"Yes, sir," I respond, reminding myself that I'm working here now. Even if he didn't actually hire me, he's basically my boss, right? Still, he really seems to be in a rush, despite telling me that there are only three things to do today. Are we really going to be that pressed for time? I follow him into the workshop. It's nowhere near as hot as the last time I was in here. The furnaces are already running, but I guess they just started, so it hasn't really started to heat up in here yet. The open area of the workshop doesn't have any molds with metals cooling yet either. I follow Eryk right to the back room. After he unlocks the first door and locks it again behind us, he speaks up while unlocking the next door.
"Sorry to be in such a rush, but we're already going on two weeks. Every day this thing stays in my shop, I risk information on it leaking. Or thieves or competitors interfering. You understand, right?"
"Because I got hurt..." I mutter.
"Pretty much," he admits with a sigh. "That's why every day counts." He locks the second door behind us as he sighs. "So, I know you got hurt last time, but did you have a chance to figure anything out before that?"
I nod. "I've come up with two possibilities. Either it's a mixture of tin and copper, or it's a type of metal I don't know of yet."
"Damn," he curses. "Metals don't mix together," he says shortly, "so it must be one you don't know of... I guess we should start by getting you familiar with the different metals then. See if that gives you more to work with."
"Ok," I nod. But I have to ask. "Metals don't mix together? Why not?"
"They just don't. When you melt them down and pour them into a mold, they separate. We see it with nickel and azrium all the time. They melt at about the same temperature, so we get them out in the melt together. The nickel floats to the top, so we scoop it off and the azrium is left on the bottom."
"Huh..." Mixing together... The thought suddenly makes me remember what Emily mentioned yesterday about stirring food together so it will mix. "Did you try stirring it?"
"Stirring?" He tilts his head like he has no idea why I would ask that.
"Emily said she stirs food to get it to mix, so I was just wondering if stirring works the same way with metal..." Halfway through my explanation, I realize this probably sounds ridiculous. I hardly know anything about refining metals, and here I am trying to apply something completely unrelated to a topic he's an expert in. It's enough to make my heart sink.
"It's worth a shot," he answers though.
"Really? Just like that?" I blink rapidly, completely caught off guard by his easy acceptance of such a weird idea.
"No harm in trying. If it works, we've made a huge discovery for nearly no effort. If not, we just cross that one off as a possibility and move on."
"Oh." I guess if it doesn't take much effort to test, there's no reason not to.
We go back out into the workshop, then Eryk calls over the workshop head. I recognize him from that one time he helped me. The big man with no hair on the top of his head, but a big beard. I think his name was Patrick.
"Start up tin and copper melts on eight and nine," Eryk instructs.
"Sure, the furnaces are about hot enough to get them started."
"Good, come get me when they're finished."
"No problem." Patrick gives a thumbs up.
"Aria, let's go over the other metals while we wait," he waves for me to follow, heading back toward his office this time.
"U-umm, is it really alright to do it in your office?" I ask, immediately worried that something will go wrong. If these are metals I've never tested with before, I have no idea what could happen.
"Ahh, that's a good point. You've never seen these ones..." He scratches his head a little. "I'd rather not do it in the back, but..." Then he shakes his head. "If anything goes wrong, my office can be fixed."
"If you say so..." I mumble, but it doesn't really help me stop worrying.
"Oh, Patrick." Eryk turns as if he just remembered something. "Make some sulphra from the next iron melt too."
"Sure, but..." For some reason, Patrick looks concerned as he answers, but he doesn't refuse or anything. I just keep following Eryk back to his office.
I sit at the table again while he goes and grabs a bunch of metal ingots he has sitting on one of his crowded shelves along the back wall of the room.
"Alright, first let's go over all of the basic properties of the metals. I'll skip everything up to iron because you're already familiar with them." He stands at the side of the table next to me and sets a number of metal bars down on the middle of the table. Then he moves one closer to me so I can touch it. "This is azrium. It's a lot like iron, but it is resistant to rusting, and is both harder and more durable. So naturally, it's a good deal more expensive and is often used in high quality goods."
I nod, but something he said is a bit confusing. "You said it's harder and more durable. Aren't those the same thing?"
"No, not at all," he says while shaking his head. "Hardness determines how difficult it is to cut or permanently deform a metal. Durability is how much force it takes to break it apart. Take a knife for example. Hardness tells you how much you can cut with it before it starts to lose its edge, while durability is how much force you can put it under before the blade snaps."
"Oh, ok." The big words are confusing, but his example makes it surprisingly easy to understand.
"So, that's azrium. Like I said, it is mainly used as a higher quality replacement for iron. It's generally priced out of the range of what peasants can afford though. We sell these bars for five coppers each."
"Wow," I gape. I could actually afford that with the money I make hunting, but it's five times as expensive as iron...
"Azrium is the most expensive common metal. The rest of these are specialty metals, so they're usually used in specialty products for businesses or the wealthy. First up would be sulphra, but I don't have any of it here."
"You don't?" I ask immediately.
He shakes his head. "I'm having them make some so you can see it, so you'll need to wait a bit on that one. I don't keep any here because it's not a particularly useful metal, but it's very expensive to produce. It's not profitable," he says with a shrug. But he's still going to spend a bunch of money to make some, just for me to see? For some reason, he decides to explain the process. "You see, if we mix sulphuric acid with the waste slag from iron ore, it produces a sulphra powder. When we melt that down again, we get sulphra out of it. But sulphuric acid comes from certain species of dangerous magical creatures. The people crazy enough to hunt them charge a premium for their parts, so it's extremely expensive." I nod along numbly with his description. All of that to produce a metal that isn't very useful?!
"That's kind of amazing, and scary," I respond.
"Pretty much," he shrugs. "But moving on... we have alba." He pushes forward a much lighter colored ingot than the others. It's almost white. In fact, the coloring reminds me of the one metal I found in the rail unit building. I gingerly reach out toward it. On contact, I feel the connection through the metal.
"I know this one!" I gasp. "No, wait..." I narrow my eyes. It feels different. The connection is definitely more clear than mollite or nuvrite, but it still isn't anywhere close to the near-perfect, lossless clarity I felt through that white metal. So while it looks similar, I remind myself that this one is still a silvery white, not completely perfect white like the other. "It's similar, but not quite like that other one."
"I'm not sure what other metal you're referring to," Eryk comments, shaking his head. Then he continues with his explanation while I gently rub my fingers across the smooth surface. "Alba isn't particularly hard or durable, so it is mostly valued for its aesthetics. It's used to produce everyday goods for the wealthy, such as forks, knives, and spoons for eating with. Or for other eye catching decorations."
"For decoration..." I repeat, barely a whisper while staring at it.
"We don't actually produce any here, it comes out of incredibly rare and valuable platinum ore, so it's only produced in the specialty refinery of the nobles. Still, since alba is only used for decoration, it's not nearly as expensive as other noble metals, and I was able to purchase that as a show piece." As his words sink in, I sigh. I really wanted to buy some to use as a replacement for nuvrite. The way it heats up and can burn me, and the way it stops working when it gets too cold means that there are lots of problems using it. Besides that, alba feels like it wouldn't burn up as much mana, so it should be better at converting it than nuvrite is.
"In any case," he grimaces a little when he sees me get downcast. "Alba is generally just used for decoration. Next up are the high heat metals. First is titanium. It's the only one we can melt in our furnaces. It breaks pretty easily, but it's rust resistant, more flexible than other metals, and holds an edge well, so it has a pretty wide range of applications." I try to remember all of the information he bombards me with, but it's difficult. "But titanium's most important property is its weight. It's the lightest metal we have. Here, compare it to iron." He points to my bag of metals, so I pull out my iron ingot, and he gives me the titanium.
"Woah," I gape as I hold the iron ingot in one hand and the titanium ingot in the other. Since all of the ingots are the same size and shape, it's easy to feel the difference. "The titanium weighs like, half of what the iron does."
"Exactly," he responds with a nod. "If you need something lightweight, titanium is the go-to metal." I set it back down, then he pulls it away and replaces it with another. It's a similar silver color, but much more shiny. It also isn't a perfectly shaped ingot like all the others. "Chromium, like I showed you yesterday. Our furnaces can't melt it, so we need to pull it out solid and beat it into shape like you saw. Chromium will never rust, never melt, and is the hardest metal we have. If you made a knife out of it, it would hold an edge for years." I nod repeatedly as he explains. I guess it's because he's steadily going to more and more expensive metals, but it seems like each one is more impressive than the last.
"It's not that heavy, and pretty durable too. So it's the metal to use when you want something to last as long as possible, or in harsh conditions. It's what we make most of the insides of our furnaces out of. Only downside is that it's not flexible at all, so you're likely to snap it if you forge it too thin or hit it the wrong way."
"Hmm..." I hum, feeling the somewhat bumpy surface of the metal. It doesn't rust and is used in harsh conditions. Maybe this is what the pipe in the rail unit baths was made of? It has the right bright, shiny silver color.
"Lastly, we have illium." He pushes forward another slightly bumpy ingot. So this is another that won't melt in their furnaces. But the color is different than all the others. It's a somewhat yellow brown color instead of silver like other metals. "It's a bit hard and kind of flexible, and also pretty light which is nice," he starts off. "But illium has two things that other metals don't. First, it is incredibly durable. You can beat on it as much as you want and it'll basically never break. And it doesn't get hot."
"Doesn't get hot?"
"Well, I guess I'm oversimplifying. I should say it doesn't transfer heat." I tilt my head a little, not understanding what that means. "Basically, if you hold a bar of iron with one end in a fire, that end will get hot." He gives an example, and I nod. I'm following so far. "As you keep holding the iron bar there, the heat will eventually move up the length of the bar so that the whole thing gets hot, so it will eventually burn you."
I never really thought of it that way before, but I guess that is what happens, isn't it? Even though I've never exactly tested that out myself. "Illium is different. It transfers heat so slowly that the other end will basically never get hot. That's why almost all of the tools like the tongs we use in the furnaces are all made out of illium.
"Oh, I get it!" If they kept using normal tongs in those super hot fires, they would eventually burn themselves because the whole thing would get too hot.
"The only unfortunate things about illium are the costs, and that it rusts pretty easily. That's why it's yellowed on the outside. When it comes fresh out of the furnace, it's actually kind of gray. But if you just let it sit around for a while, the outside rusts and it starts to look like this."
"Ahh..." I run my fingers across the surface, feeling how it is a bit grainy instead of super smooth like most metals. I guess because the outside is actually rust?
"The production costs and unique properties make it the single most expensive metal we produce, so illium tools do not come cheap." He sighs a little, probably remembering how much he had to pay for everything in the workshop. "Anyway, that covers all of the regular metals. There are also silver, gold, and platinum, but those are all made at noble refineries and they're incredibly expensive. If I really tried, I could probably get my hands on some silver, but they wouldn't sell gold or platinum to me, even if I somehow found enough money to afford them."
"Wow, they're really that expensive..." So much that even Eryk can't afford them? "But... silver and gold? Are they named after the colors?"
"Hmm, maybe. Or it's possible that the colors are named after the metals."
"Huh..." Either way, it gives me an idea of what they look like.
"Now that I've shown you each, do you have any thoughts before we move on?" I fold my hands under my chin and stare at the metal ingots. Do I have any thoughts on this? For now, I just go over them in my head again. It's too much to remember all of their different properties just hearing them once, so I try to just focus on the most important ones.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Azrium is just better iron. Alba is for decoration, but it can actually carry mana. Titanium is hard and lightweight. Chromium doesn't rust or melt, and is super hard. And Illium also doesn't melt, it's super durable, and doesn't transfer heat. Do I have any questions about any of them...?
"Actually, I wanted to ask if you could get another ingot of alba. I'd like to buy one if it's possible. How much does it cost?"
"Well, it'll take me some time to get one," he starts. "They're a nickel each though."
"How much is that?" I'm not familiar with those coins.
"Each nickel coin is ten irons," he says simply.
I suck in a breath. That's two or three weeks of my income from hunting. Even so, I answer, "that's fine," without another thought.
Of course, Eryk's tired eyes open a little with surprise. "Why do you want alba so badly?" he asks.
I tell him outright. "I think it might make a better alternative to nuvrite. Possibly without the drawbacks nuvrite has. I'll have to test it out to see, but it's worth any amount of money for that possibility." If it really gets cold enough in the winter, I won't be able to use nuvrite anymore. I don't care if it costs everything I have, I need something else to use when that happens or I won't be able to convert mana anymore.
"I see, then I'll ask around. It might take a while though."
"Thank you." I bow until my head almost touches the table.
"If that's all, we should move on now."
"Yeah, that's all." After I answer, Eryk looks around his office briefly, for some reason.
"Hmm, I suppose we can do this in the back room. That might be a little more private, just to make sure no one walks in." I nod. Even if people normally knock first, there are multiple doors into Eryk's office, so shopkeepers or anyone in the workshop could come in at any moment if they forgot to knock or something. "John, keep watch at the door."
"Yes, sir." John answers simply, then we move over to the back room. With John standing right outside, he'll let us know if anyone comes to talk to Eryk.
Once he shuts the window and bolts it closed, Eryk turns to me and asks, "Ok, so now you're going to test each material with mana, right?"
"Yes."
"I feel like I should ask, but are you alright with me seeing what they all do? I know you haven't told me about the exact interactions with the other metals because they could be profitable, right?"
"That's true..." I mumble. I hadn't really thought about that. I haven't told Eryk exactly how I make magnets or anything because it's information I might be able to use later when I can think of a useful application.
Eventually, I decide. "I think it's fine like this. I don't have the money to get these metals on my own, so I'd like to test them out while I have the chance. Even if you find out what they can do, I wouldn't be able to sell information if I don't have any way of learning about it myself..." That's pretty much it. Eryk is letting me work with them. If he didn't, it could take months to get enough money to buy each ingot on my own and test them in secret. I'm far more interested in knowing what they do and if it can help me, than maybe making some money off of knowing about them.
"Mm, alright then."
"But..." I scratch my cheek a little. "Is it really alright for me to test with your metals? What if something happens to them?"
"Something? Like what?" He raises an eyebrow, looking especially worried after what happened yesterday.
"I have no idea. Anything could happen. So I just want to make sure it's alright. I don't know if they'll explode or something, and then your metal will be gone."
"I feel like we would have more pressing concerns, but I see your point," he sighs. "That's fine, I don't mind if anything happens to these."
"Ok." I give him a strong nod to show my determination. "I'll get to work then."
He sits down in the chair opposite me, all of the ingots resting in front of him. This table is a good deal smaller than the one in his office, but there's still plenty of space. So I dump out my bag of ingots and take a moment to organize everything. I'm properly prepared today, I won't make a stupid mistake like before.
I go through and generate a good deal of lightning mana in case there's a repeat of last time. It might help me puzzle out things that are unclear too. I also grab the mollite ingots and use them to magnetize the durite as powerfully as I can. I have to push the iron ingots down into the chair next to me so they don't get stuck to the durite. Then stand up in my chair so I can reach far enough across the table to bring the durite near the line of ingots.
I hold it out toward the metal ingots on the other side of the table. The azrium slides right across the table to stick to the durite. "Huh, I guess the azrium is magnetic too," I say. I manage to pull them apart by pushing the azrium off using the edge of the table, then ask Eryk to hold onto it for now. I go down the rest of the line, finding that none of the others are magnetic. However, chromium stands out because unlike the others that stick just a bit to the powerful magnet, it shows no response whatsoever. I wonder why?
"Alright, it looks like azrium and iron are magnetic," I say, before waving the magnet over the rest of my metals, just to be sure. For some reason, the nickel ingot actually jumps up off the table to stick to the durite. "Woah!" I gasp. Did I never test nickel with magnets before? I guess not... "And nickel, apparently," I say with wide eyes. Once I'm finished with that, I whack the ingot against the edge of the table a couple times so it doesn't end up attracting something later. Getting my hand crushed between two metal ingots would be really unpleasant...
"Now let's see how each metal reacts." Eryk nods, watching closely. I grab a nuvrite coin instead of an ingot. I'll use a small amount of mana for these first tests. "Azrium please." He pushes it forward so I can reach it while sitting this time. I push just a little mana. I don't see an immediate change with the ingot, but I get a new type of mana back.
"Oh, this one is water!" I say excitedly as it generates. I finally found a source! It seems oddly fitting. The metal has a unique blue color, and it actually ended up making water mana.
"A mana type?" he asks.
"Yeah, I've seen it before, but I've never had a chance to test it since I couldn't find a way to make any." I push the mana around a little. It really feels a lot like water, even more smooth and flowy than the rest of the mana types.
"Hmm..." He looks like he has more questions, but he doesn't ask anything else.
Now that I've found that, I switch to mollite, just going with the small bit in my wrist instead of the ingot, to keep the power down. At first, nothing happens, so I push a little harder, then a little more. Once I've reached a moderately strong flow of mana, I figure this is it. "Azrium only produces water type mana," I say, then push the ingot back toward him.
Eryk nods and replaces it with the next ingot in line. "Alba," he reminds me, even though I remember the silvery white metal very well already. At a touch, I know it will carry mana. But let's see if this one is any different than mollite and nuvrite. Will mana do anything to it? Tests with nuvrite and mollite end exactly as I thought, with no notable changes. Titanium comes next. Strangely, it shows no reaction either.
"Hmm..." I mumble. This is the first metal that doesn't do anything at all, isn't it? "No, doesn't that make it like that one?" I mutter to myself. I suddenly remember the one metal I saw back at the rail unit building. Those special tongs used for holding those stones was made of a metal like this, which had no reaction with mana. I guess those were titanium. "Titanium has no reaction." I say definitively, and push it back across.
Now for the two really impressive ones... I think I already know what to expect from chromium though. As soon as he pushes it across, I just have to tap it with the nuvrite coin, and it confirm my suspicions. "Chromium creates air mana and turns transparent." I say.
"Woah, wait!" Eryk gasps, half standing from his chair. "What was that?!"
I blink a few times, surprised by his, well, surprise. "Oh, I had a chance to test this one, once before," I try to explain. "When you told me it's used in harsh conditions, I thought this might be the one. Like I thought, it produces air mana and it turns transparent."
"You-" But he cuts himself off there with a shake of his head. "I mean, can you show me that one again?"
"Sure." I press the coin to the ingot again and let a decent flow of mana through so it disappears. Then I hold it up, looking through it so I can see Eryk. "See?"
"That's incredible," he thinks aloud. "I'm sure we could come up with all sorts of applications..."
I shake my head and remind him, "Sorry, but that might be hard since I'm the only one that can do it."
"True..." he sighs and runs a hand through his hair as he sinks back into his seat. But then I remember those stones the rail unit program had. They definitely contained mana and they were able to transfer it. I never worked out exactly how the transfer worked, but they even had slots in other areas of the building that used mana. Which also makes me think that the lights were powered by mana as well. I don't know where they got the stones or how they managed to store mana inside of them, but if there was some way to get stones like that, maybe even someone like Eryk could take advantage of mana. But I think I'm getting ahead of myself. All of that belonged to the rail unit program, like I do. Meaning that things like mana are all owned by the rail unit program, aren't they? So it might not be possible to get stones like that.
While my thoughts wander, Eryk continues to gaze at, or rather through, the see through metal in my hand. He even reaches out to touch it lightly, shuddering a little when his finger touches the invisible surface. When he finally seems to have calmed down, I set the ingot down once more.
He pushes over the last one, the yellow colored illium. The most expensive, and possibly unique metal they make. Now that I think about it, aren't both of those doors leading into the back room yellow like this? He went to the trouble of making both of them out of the most sturdy metal there is, despite the costs...
But my mind is wandering. I refocus on my task and test the illium with my nuvrite coin first. When the ingot simply slumps down into the table, I stare at it for a few long moments. What just happened? It looks like it just turned into a puddle on the table.
Then, "I broke it!" I scream, suddenly wailing uncontrollably.
"Aria?!" Eryk flinches, his chair toppling over as he stands.
"Waaah!" I can't help myself and just cry.
"It's alright! Look, it's fine! See?" He picks up the puddle shaped illium off the table to show that it's still a solid piece of metal, it's just changed shape.
When I realize that, the overpowering sorrow starts to ease. It lets me think clearly enough to realize that this situation isn't right. Eryk starts patting my head frantically as he assures me that nothing is wrong. As long as Eryk says it's fine, it is, right? I smile up at him through my tears and hug his leg. He's always so nice to me!
"Aria, what are you doing...?" As tired as he is, Eryk clearly has no idea what is going on anymore. Which makes me wonder, what am I doing? Now that I'm not so sad, I wonder why I'm rubbing my face into his leg. Wait, I've seen this before!
Pulling myself away, I stumble to the floor as I shove all the mana down into my well. It takes a few long moments, then all of the jumbled up feelings vanish. I can think straight again.
Why am I so stupid? I had way too much air mana because I kept that chromium invisible for so long, and water mana from the azrium. That overpowering sadness was new, so my best guess is that it's from water. But to be that strong, even though I only had a little bit of it...
I stand up once more, looking back up at the confused Eryk. "I'm really sorry," I immediately apologize while hanging my head in shame. "I didn't realize mixing water and air would have such a strong effect..." That sudden, impulsive snap to start crying at the slightest thing could only come from that. I never considered how the impulsiveness from air could make me act on the my other feelings being all messed up...
I shake my head. "I'm really sorry about- about all of that." I wipe away the tears on my cheeks, looking at how I got Eryk's pants dirty.
"O-oh." He seems to understand after a moment. "So that was just the effect of the mana." Then he slowly releases a long breath.
"Yeah, it can sort of go out of control if I'm not careful. I'm surprised it was that bad though, I didn't generate that much water mana. And it's sort of hard to control air because, well, the effect of air makes it more difficult to control yourself..." I trail off at the end.
Air mana really is hard to deal with. As I sit back down, I pull up more mana from my well since I just got rid of most of mine, then generate some more earth to help with my body that is quickly starting to hurt more without it. Eryk picks up his chair and moves to sit down as well. "Oh, and I'm sorry for getting your pants dirty!" I say when I look back at his leg that I hugged. He just brushes it off with his hand and says it's fine. But he still looks displeased as he answers, so I'm worried he's actually kind of angry about it. I'll try to be more careful not to touch him in the future...
"Anyway, this is the effect on illium," he says while holding the strangely shaped metal up. It has a really weird shape, like a puddle of water that was suddenly solidified. "If it works the way it looked, it may be another incredible discovery. Give me some time, I'll be right back." Without saying anything else, he leaves the room. Like he said, he's back really fast, just four ticks before he walks back in. He sets down a small metal tray on the table. At a glance it's obvious that it's one of the molds used for ingots. Only this one is sized for a single ingot.
"I would like you to do that one more time." He sets the illium down on top of the mold and pushes it toward me. My eyes go wide as I understand immediately. Even though I only saw it briefly, it looked like the illium turned to liquid inside the mana field. Even their furnaces can't melt it, so they can't cast it into ingots. If I can liquefy illium with my mana, I could make it into ingots, right? I slowly hold the coin out, but suddenly stop myself when I see a problem.
"Eryk, what is the mold made of?" I ask. Well, it isn't yellow, so it shouldn't be made of illium. That would be a disaster. It's one of the silvery metals, but there are so many that it's kind of hard to tell at a glance.
"It's titanium, it'll be fine," he assures me.
"O-ok then." Titanium doesn't have any effect, so I don't need to worry about that at least. But how should I do this? The puddle shaped illium is wider around than the mold, so I can't just set it on top and hit it with my mana. I could try holding it and lowering it into the mana field, but I'm worried about whether it will get hot or not, since usually metal needs to get super hot to melt.
For now, I'll try to clear up that part. I set it back on the table since it's already spread out like a puddle, and generate another mana field near it. I see it spread just a little bit more on the table, but when I hold my hand over it, I don't feel any heat coming off. So I stop and sigh a little. I guess mana turns it to liquid without actually making it hot. That's a relief.
Knowing that, I just hold it up with one hand, put my nurvite coin by the mold and make another mana field, then slowly lower the illium into the mana field so that it turns into a liquid a little bit at a time and pours down into the mold. Slowly but surely, I fill up the mold.
I stop pushing my mana with a confident smile this time, and turn the mold over. When I lift it off, there is a beautiful, perfectly smooth ingot of illium. And it's gray now, unlike the yellow color from earlier. I'm not sure why... Maybe since only the outside had rusted, some of the rust wound up mixing inside the ingot once it turned into a liquid? That kind of worries me, but there isn't anything to do for it, is there?
"Absolutely incredible..." Eryk says with a big grin on his face. Then he stops grinning and rubs his chin as he thinks. "How to apply it though? I suppose I could just have you produce illium ingots for now..." Without warning, he stands up. "We've finished with this, let's go check on the other project. It feels like they're taking too long." He switches so fast!
"S-sure," I stammer, starting to gather my metals and put them into my bag. Eryk picks up all of his ingots and we go back into his office. He puts all of his metal ingots back on the shelf he got them from, and then we head over to the workshop again. He looks down at me with a frown when I stop to put my shoes back on, but all I can do is apologize again. I really don't want to get his carpet all dirty walking back and forth across it all the time...
We head into the workshop, Eryk grabbing that black thing off of a hook and throwing it on over his clothes as if he hardly notices it. I guess if he's been doing this for a long time, it must be a really strong habit by now. We walk over to the furnaces on the end, and he stands in front of them while frowning. "Patrick!" he calls loudly. The burly man leaves whatever he was doing over by another furnace and walks over quickly.
"What's up?"
"I told you to tell me when they finished," Eryk is obviously irritated.
"Yeah, they're still cooling." Patrick answers with a blank expression.
Eryk opens his mouth to say something, hesitates, then closes it again. "Ugh, I wasn't clear enough. I'm too tired today..." He holds his face in his hand and sighs loudly. "Alright, show me which ones they are." With just a nod and a vaguely worried look, Patrick walks us over to the area where all the big molds are sitting. He points out two of them, sitting side by side about halfway down the line toward the back wall. The metal inside is still pretty brightly colored.
"Good, they haven't cooled yet," Eryk says, "get me a crucible and a ladle."
"Ok." Huh, Patrick is the only one who doesn't speak to Eryk respectfully. I wonder why? Is it because he's in charge of the workshop part of the company? Does that make him Eryk's equal? But he still does everything Eryk says, so could it be that he's above the other workers, but still below Eryk? Do companies work like that?
I'm still wondering about it when he comes back with a couple things. One is just a big spoon, but the other looks like a bowl. I turn back to Eryk, and it looks like he grabbed some sort of little stand while I wasn't paying attention. He shows me the bowl and explains, "this is a crucible, it's used for holding hot metal. This is a ladle." He holds up the big spoon- ladle too, probably not bothering to explain since it's so obvious. Well, the shape is pretty different from a regular spoon. The curved part is big and round, and the way he holds it, it seems to be for dunking into things instead of scooping like with a regular spoon.
So I'm not surprised when he lowers the ladle directly down into the mold, pulling up most of the molten metal in one of the spots for an ingot. He lets some drip off of the ladle before carefully transferring it over to the crucible. He even pours it in with extreme care, asking me to back away just in case. Well, he is working with incredibly hot metal right now. Burns from that would be... really scary, wouldn't they? Once he has finished that, he drags the stand with the crucible over to the other mold Patrick pointed out and repeats the process.
"Hey Eryk, what are you up to?" Patrick asks, watching this with clear confusion.
"Running some tests on different metal properties to see if I can figure out something that's been bothering me," Eryk answers surprisingly smoothly.
"Alright then, let me know how it goes," Patrick says with a shrug. The response just makes Eryk grin while Patrick returns to the furnaces.
As soon as he's collected the two molten metals in the crucible, Eryk drags the stand over to the doors. It's awkward going through with the stand and Eryk warns me repeatedly not to touch it, but we eventually manage to get through the two locked doors in the special secure room in the back without me burning myself on the crucible in the cramped space.
"Now to stir..." Eryk mutters, "I don't have any tools for that though..."
"Umm..." I just point at the ladle he's still holding. Opposite of the scooping end, it's just a cylindrical stick.
"Huh, that looks good," he says with a nod. Then he pulls out a rag from somewhere inside the black thing over his clothes and starts wiping off the bit of metal left on the ladle.
"Hey Eryk, what is that black thing called?" I finally ask.
"A smock, it keeps your clothes clean," he explains while slowly and carefully wiping down the ladle. I give a small nod and commit the word to memory.
When he's finally satisfied that there's no more molten metal to accidentally burn himself, and the end of the ladle has cooled, Eryk turns the it around to hold it by the scooping end and lowers the other side into the crucible. With slow, steady motions, he stirs the two metals together. "How long should I stir for?" he asks. How should I know? I immediately panic a little, trying to remember what Emily said when she was cooking. I think she just stirred it until all the food was hot.
So maybe... "Until it cools down... I guess?" Then the thought clicks and everything makes sense. "Yeah, you said they separate, right? So I think you should keep stirring while they cool down so they don't separate."
"That makes sense," he agrees, continuing his careful stirring while the metals slowly but surely cool down and lose their reddish glow. I just stand and wait patiently while he works. Still, standing like this is making me tired. It hasn't even been that long yet, we have about one hundred fifty ticks until the fourth bell, and he said there is more to do today, like meeting my instructor. I have to save my energy. "Hey, Eryk..." I mumble a little.
"Yeah?" He raises an eyebrow.
"Can I..." I blush and stare at the floor guiltily. "Can I take a nap?" Even if I need to conserve my energy, sleeping while he works is just terrible...
"Absolutely." He answers without any hesitation. It makes me smile a little, despite the overwhelming guilt.
"Thank you." I say it quietly, then roll onto my side on the floor.
"Right here?" he gasps in a quiet voice, but then chuckles. "You can sleep anywhere, can't you? Just get some rest, I need you in top form later." With my eyes already closed, I nod.
It takes a few moments to make the earth mana with my coins, before I relax, despite the hard stone floor beneath me. It brings back unpleasant memories, but they can't bother me much with so much earth mana. The thought does make me worry that I'm relying on the earth mana too much to sleep. I'm sure I'll have a lot of trouble later when I'm healed and try to stop using it so much...
But for now I just try to forget it and let myself sleep.